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I'm finally getting time to do a few things in our new garden, and with spring appearing it's all exciting.

I remember a friend saying she lived being back at her parents house visiting because of the garden, and I want my kids to feel the same way. So we've got a designated area for the kids, maybe 6x6m, and the rest of the garden has a number of corners, nooks and crannies that could really be made into quite nice things.

I prefer the thought of things being quite full and busy rather than clean and clinical.

So far the list is roughly:
Cut down an overbearing large pine and a leaning birch, replanted the birch a few ft in from the boundary it was on
Cleared a few raised beds
Reduced the size of the bamboo clumps
Got a kids Wendy house
Built a large swing
Cleared a jungle from the now kids area
Planted fruit bushes, strawberries and a few shrubs
Planted an apple, pear and plum tree. The pear is against a south facing wall and will be trained out wide.

Loads more little things. I want to have plenty scent, bees and wildlife and so on.

That sounds delightful, I have many happy memories of time in our garden at home. Make sure that bamboo knows who's boss, my next door neighbour had to pay for the pavement to be dug up to remove his as it had lifted his brick wall and the kerb stones. It's also ruining his very expensively paved drive.

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From an unwanted stump mashed in with some ancient cotoneaster roots and stems, to a lovely wee corner bed ready to plant a white camellia that's sitting waiting for a home. It'll provide some needed screening above the wall to the house at the back

Planted a camellia and a pieris today and cleared the large raised bed area at he front with the fancy evergreen trees in it. The plan here is to put down a few cubic m of woodchip which I've managed to source for free. It should look superb.

Can you WILL a newly planted hedge of bare root plants to grow faster simply by staring at it every day?

Grass seed really doing well on the patches where i cut out some huge roots

And some natural kids furniture! A mushroom table made out of rounds of tree and I'll pop 3 little light chairs around it. Also a flat play table on the raised bed, plus a few little plants put in after I cleared the bed

I'll get some updates soon, but I've been sowing seeds, planting things and watering the whole place like crazy every evening. We've got a 3 year old kids party next weekend and I'm panicking about keeping the dozen little guests off the sensitive areas! I think I'm just going to have to lay tarps over a load of it.

Some more work underway. I am gradually getting rid of the various slabs and boulders around the garden, it's full of them and looks horrible. So the edge of this raised bed is going to be turned into a grassy slope

The recent rain has made the garden super wet and it really doesn't drain properly at all, so I've put in land drains

Here is one of the small planted corners filled out quite well

This section was all slabs and resulted in run off puddles at the edge of the lawn. Now prepared for turfing and space at the back for some 6-7ft screening shrubs

Swings and sunflowers

Reduced the height of this bed to make it less imposing and keep it less dry. Took the front of it back 6ft too and took out the old washing pole.

A pile of sandstone boulders left over now!

I'm going to plant up the kids garden at the old pine with loads of plants and I'm gradually building up a collection of dug up extras from customers and fellow friendly gardeners.

A bit more light landscaping then it'll be soil improvement and planting.

Thanks for sharing your progress, I love to see how gardens improve over time. Well done! Am I alone in taking lots of pics of sections of the garden over the year so that I can remember where I planted bulbs etc? The changes from bare soil to a colourful border gives me endless pleasure throughout the year.

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you. Thanks to everyone who contributes to this wonderful forum. I'm very grateful for the guidance and friendliness that I always receive from you.

Every time I look around the garden I just see so much that needs doing! That broken paving stuff in the corner (under where I've sat the sandstone boulders) is looking really ugly and I want to get rid but I can't think what to put there instead. May just dig them out and plant the whole area up with Sedum! The only other thing we have there is a pear tree against a wall and a bench seat that I made, so a sedum floor might be alright.

We had a similar problem. We avoided the cost of disposing of ugly broken paving slabs by building a little raised terrace, using them as hard-core, then buying some new slabs to top it. From the front it looks like a drystone wall and will make a lovely little viewing platform where I can tuck myself away to watch the birds. Just looking for a nice bench now...

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you. Thanks to everyone who contributes to this wonderful forum. I'm very grateful for the guidance and friendliness that I always receive from you.

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